Strange Impulse
by malianyla
Summary: Tenten is never impulsive, or is she? Especially when it comes to Neji.
1. Chapter 1

(A/N: My first ever fanfic! Be kind. Do review. 1000 brownie points for the first reviewer. Haha. I really want to know what y'all think :) )

Disclaimer: I own nothing (That should do right).

**Strange Impulse**

Tenten silently checked her scrolls and weapons in preparation for Team Gai's training session. Team Gai was always the first on the training field. She looked around and spotted Neji meditating in his usual spot under the Sakura tree. The pink blossoms were in bloom, casting a splash of color on the otherwise bare grounds. The tree was somewhat sacred, no one dared put a scratch in its bark unless they wanted to deal with an extremely deadly Hyuga's wrath.

She smiled at the deceptively calm scene. Neji's flowing white robes were arranged neatly around him, his palms on his knees, as he sat in the traditional lotus position. The early morning light threw a golden halo around him, highlighting his high cheekbones and the angular planes of his face. His long hair was unbound and cascaded down his shoulders. In a word he was as perfect as a new sunrise.

She felt downright scruffy in comparison. She had just got back from her first A-rank mission. It had been rough and she had barely four hours of sleep till she was back at the training field.

She could've skipped it, given her schedule, but this was almost like tradition to her. Lately, she had been seeing less and less of her teammates. They each had been going out on separate missions with other teams. Neji especially was quickly surpassing them. He had twice as many high ranking missions as both Lee and her put together. There was talk of him giving the Jounin exams soon. To be honest, it made her a little sad but they had to part ways eventually. She started fussing with her weapons again wondering why the rest of Team Gai were taking so long.

After fifteen long minutes of twirling a kunai around her little finger, Tenten had had enough. Admittedly, the Hyuga could rarely be classified as talkative but Neji hadn't even so much as batted an eyelid to acknowledge her presence. Normally, she wouldn't be that bothered. But today she had vainly wanted to atleast be acknowledged by her teammates. Admittedly it was nothing new to Neji, who had already been on an A-rank mission six months ago but it had been a big step forward for her. Any reaction would have been nice. Instead all she had was a stony, disinterested silence from Neji. More than anything, she wished Neji could be a bit more demonstrative like Lee and Gai Sensei who would've slapped her on the back and congratulated her, if they were here that is. All her excitement at coming together with her team again was leeching out of her bit by bit.

Frustrated, she grabbed a handful of kunai and tossed them unerringly at the logs lining the ground at spaced intervals. She whirled in a graceful arc, seamlessly pulling out kunai and striking each log in turn. A thought came unbidden into her mind and the next instant her fingers had acted on it. She stopped with a gasp, as a curtain of Sakura blossoms rained down around Neji from the force of her strike. A kunai was embedded upto its hilt, a couple of inches above Neji's head. Neji's 's eyes locked onto hers. To make things worse, she looked away like a chastised school girl. Just what was wrong with her today? Tenten never gave in to impulses and she never missed. Both of which Neji knew perfectly well. Right now his eyes were taking in her deepening blush, looking for the reasons behind her behavior. Tenten suddenly felt very little, like a child crying for attention.

Tenten and Neji were alike in some ways. Their actions spoke volumes. In Tenten's case, she let her weapons do all the talking. If the viciousness of that strike had been any indication, she was most definitely angry and angry at him in particular. However, her expression indicated embarrassment, perhaps guilt? Tenten watched in dismay as Neji dislodged the kunai with some difficulty, his back turned towards her. This day was not going well at all she thought as she approached him.

"Neji", she said bowing her head in greeting. She noticed her kunai was now tucked into his belt.

"Tenten", he nodded back in response.

She should apologize but her mouth stubbornly refused to move any further. There was that strange impulse again.

"Gai Sensei and Lee will not be joining us today" said Neji, as he watched the little pout on her lips and the sullen expression she always got when she was trying very hard to do something but couldn't.

"Oh", she looked up at him dismayed, broken from her thoughts.

He stood fingering the kunai at his belt absently. An awkward pause followed.

"Perhaps, we should train together, if you so wish", he said at last.

To Tenten's already riled temper, Neji's matter of fact tone, sounded like reluctance. Admittedly, their fighting styles were as different as oil and water. The Hyuga did not rely on weapons and they were deadly in close combat. Tenten's strong points were mid and long range weapon attacks. Neji's ultimate defense was exactly that, there was no getting past it though Tenten never stopped trying.

"No", she replied curtly, though inside she really wanted to try out a new technique on him, the one she had used to defeat the Nin on her last mission. Neji was in a word surprised by her denial. For the most part his teammates were easy to read. He had been sure a good spar with him would cheer her up from whatever it was that was troubling her. It always worked before. If anything, the pout on Tenten's face only increased. Neji looked at her intently, checking her for injuries. By all reports, her mission had gone well. It had been a decisive victory. She had even earned a nickname for herself, the "deadly flower maiden". How that had come about was a mystery to him. But that's what the Ninja gossip grapevine was buzzing with. Giving her another once over, he frowned perplexed, she seemed physically fit, just a little worn out which was to be expected.

Tenten, on the other hand, was looking downright annoyed. She felt a nervous flutter in her stomach with the way he was looking at her. It was almost as if, he was checking her appearance and found it wanting. That decided it. She would call it a day, all this thinking was giving her a headache. In her excitement to see him after so long, she had conveniently forgotten how infuriating the Hyuga could be sometimes.

"So, I'll be going then. I'm sorry about earlier. It was..", she faltered as Neji took a step closer. He merely crossed his arms and stood towering over her. She cleared her throat, staring at the kunai at his waist. The fact that he had not offered it back to her yet struck her. Maybe he was angry after all. She had been petty, maiming his special tree. Why was it special anyway? Besides it wasn't some irreplaceable family heirloom to get so touchy about. Neji stood fingering her kunai in his hands contemplatively. The hilt had the craving of a dragon's body, the eye of which was embedded with an emerald. There was only one such kunai in all of Japan, the one her deceased mother left her, she realized with a sharp breath.

"Neji, that kunai is..", she started to say.

"Mine", he interrupted.

Neji watched with a smirk as Tenten realized he had no intention of letting her off that easily.

"But, .. I must have it", she said firmly.

"You know the old saying, to the victor go the spoils."

She looked at him as if he had grown a second head.

"It looked like you wanted to start a fight back there. If you are not going to finish what you start, it is as good as conceding defeat", he said coolly.

"You want me to fight you for it?", she ground out.

"Yes, if you still have it in you", he replied condescendingly. Her cheeks burned with indignation.

"All right, be ready to taste defeat", she said at last, closing the distance between them and looking up at him defiantly, mirroring his posture. Neji's eyes warmed imperceptibly. This was the Tenten he knew, he thought, appreciating the fierce glow in her large brown eyes and the determined line of her lips. He basked in the heady feeling of the chakra in her body strumming with energy. Perhaps he was enjoying this a little too much. He took a step back stiffly.

"You may try", he said,a little more gently than he intended to. Tenten merely huffed and went to gather her weapons.


	2. Chapter 2

Tenten looked back at Neji standing calmly in the middle of the training ground. He looked as expressionless as ever. That particular Hyuga trait had been growing on him lately. The emotional boy who faced off against his cousin in the Chuunin exams had changed. He was more at peace with himself. Perhaps, he never openly showed his frustrations or anger anymore. Lee said, she was probably the only one who understood his silences. But then Lee was anything but subtle. As teammates she and Neji had always worked well together. Their temperaments were similar. Both were like-minded and serious when it came to their work as Ninjas. She respected him greatly. They often trained together, yet, she wondered if it was ever possible to know him completely. She couldn't tell what he was really thinking. What he thought about you or if he thought about you at all. Wistfully, she wondered if she the only one affected by the thought that Neji would be leaving the team soon, after he passed the Jounin exams. Would he miss his old team? All her anger at him dissipated at the thought, to be replaced by a twinge of hurt.

"When do you give the Jounin exams", she asked, trying to keep the moroseness from her tone.

"In a week."

"Oh. That's sooner than I imagined."

"It is the right time."

She didn't have anything to say to that. Of course it was the right time. He had simply outgrown their team. She bit her lips coming to a decision. Well then, she'd make this a fight worth remembering, if this was the last time they would train together like this as teammates.

She moved into a fighting stance.

"Ready", she yelled. He nodded.

"Go", she said, letting loose a set of kunai in his direction. He avoided them with ease. But she was just getting started. She whipped open the first scroll.

"Dance of the kunai", she yelled.

Hundreds of kunai burst forth from the scroll, in a continuous stream, the flow changing direction seamlessly while following their targets motion.

'Not bad.' thought Neji. Her Chakra control had improved greatly he noted as he narrowly avoided the latest slew of kunai, their motion directed by hundreds of slender strings that allowed her to control each of them. He dashed into the trees amid thunks from metal hitting wood as the kunai tore through the leaves of the tree to embed themselves in the branches. He had a second to notice that some of the kunai now had exploding tags on them, before the entire tree went up in flames. 'The little vixen is out for blood today', Neji thought grimly, brushing the charred leaves from his robe. Neji had teleported out of the tree and was currently heading straight at her in a direct frontal attack.

"Invisible death" she said, quickly forming the seals as he emerged from the foliage.

A light stirring of breeze above his head was all the warning he had, before he looked up to see thousand shining points of light engulf him with pain. Neji's shadow clone returned to him with a pop. Neji grimaced as the clones memories were transferred to him. It was a clever attack, she had let loose and held the scroll containing the senbon suspended in the air with a Chakra string, all the while that she had been attacking the tree to flush him out. The senbon were sleeker than usual and nearly invisible to the eye. Each one could be tipped with poison, if the occasion warranted it. Not for the first time, Neji appreciated what a fine partner she was to have in battle beside him. He felt a little nostalgic at the thought. All the same, while she was distracted by his shadow clone, Neji prepared to divest her of her scrolls. She whirled away from his attack, but it was too late, the kunai in Neji's hand had slashed away the bindings of the backpack containing her scrolls. Neji flipped the bag over with his foot. It was empty. Tenten faced him from a few feet away with a smug smile on her face. Neji activated the Byakugan. Slivers of chakra strings extended from her fingers to the scrolls placed on the ground surrounding them on all sides. Her mouth moved silently as she finished a series of seals and flipped back out of the circle. The scrolls immediately sprung to life, engulfing Neji in a deluge of .. Sakura blossoms? They swirled around, surrounding him from all sides forming a hollow column with him at the center.

"Kai" said Neji, releasing the Genjutsu illusion. The Sakura blossoms took on their real form, six pointed metal discs with a thin piece of metal jutting out perpendicular to the petals. The column had grown too tall to attempt jumping over.

"Flower cage", yelled Tenten. The discs started coalescing and binding together with the force of her chakra. They quickly interlocked forming a solid cage, the walls lined with sharp jutting points preventing anyone from trying to escape by climbing the walls up to the top. Now, they closed off his last chance of escape, covering the open top, to form a jagged dome. He was in darkness, except for the pin pricks of light let in through the joints held together by Chakra, the glowing edges forming the shapes of dozens upon dozens of delicate Sakura blossoms.

It was in a word beautiful. It took exquisite craftsmanship and excellent technique to pull this off. He knew the amount of Chakra she must've put into the attack. Her Chakra reserves were still holding up but not for long he knew. She had used up too much Chakra too fast by being on the offensive all the time. Yet, Neji was impressed, knowing she had barely any rest since her mission ended. He allowed himself a moment of genuine appreciation for the resilient Kunoichi.

"Neji, do you concede", came Tenten's voice from the top of the Dome.

"No", came the muffled reply. She could almost imagine the smirk on his face.

"Cage of Pain", she growled, leaping away.

Flower shaped discs with razor sharp edges dislodged from the walls flying across the small space within the dome. More and more discs were dislodging themselves now. Yet, there was no sound from within at all. Why hadn't he made a move yet? She heard a grunt of pain from Neji. Her eyes widened in surprise and worry. Hastily, she released the Chakra strings holding up the swirling mass, panting from the effort of holding them up. Only the discs didn't stop moving, in fact they continued attacking Neji. What was going on?

As the remaining structure finally crumbled away she caught sight of Neji, he was spinning around in the dizzying fast motion of the Kaiten jutsu, only rather than repel the attack, it seemed like he was weaving his own chakra into the discs. He had successfully caught each and every one of them. A dizzying amount of chakra strings crisscrossed around the discs. Amazing.

"Tenten. Take cover", he warned, his voice deadly serious. Tenten's eyes widened and she dashed back towards the woods.

Neji focused all his Chakra into the hardened discs. There was the sound of metal grating against metal as he turned the deadly discs against their own, shattering the lot of them. They exploded outward as he released his Chakra, the centrigual force from his rotating chakra propelling the tiny shards of metal outwards. A few traveled far enough to strike the tree Tenten had taken cover in.

She had been completely defeated. Tenten felt her knees give out as she keeled over from Chakra exhaustion.


	3. Chapter 3

Tenten felt a cool hand at her forehead. She felt herself being lifted.

"I'm okay", she murmured, her eyes half open.

"Hn", said Neji's voice somewhere in the vicinity of her right ear.

"Let me go", she managed to whisper, twitching her fingers into the fabric of his robes. It was hard to move.

"No", he mock whispered back. She sighed, closing her eyes again.

Tenten coughed a little and squinted up. The sun was directly overhead. She was lying among some familiar looking Sakura blossoms. She turned her head to the side, an equally familiar and extremely displeased looking Hyuga sat beside her, under the Sakura tree. Maybe she should go back to sleep again. But Neji was already pulling her up. He braced her back against his raised knee and force fed her more of the energy drink they carried around on missions. He handed her a soldier pill as well, which she gulped down meekly. She moved to get up but he held her down firmly.

"Now, whats going on?", Neji said, tightening his grip on her hand. He turned her to face him.

"What.. do you mean?", she stammered, a little thrown by their proximity.

"What were you trying to prove?", he demanded.

"I wasn't trying to prove anything!", she retorted shaking his grip loose. Her eyes stung as she recalled, how she had failed yet again. She couldn't lose to him, not now. Not when he wouldn't be around to spar with her anymore.

"I just..", she faltered. He tipped her head up, his fingers under her chin. She felt a little lightheaded. It was hard to look him in the eye for some reason.

"I wanted to give you something to remember me by", she hiccuped. Her eyes closed in mortification at the obvious catch in her voice and the lone tear escaping down her cheek.

"You're leaving..you'll be Jounin...before me...", she blurted out. Despite his alarm, Neji smirked. Typical Tenten.

"Maybe you'll forget us..me..but I would miss you..and I haven't even defeated you yet", she bawled, completely losing her head. She knew she was rambling, it was that strange impulse again. Surprising words kept spilling from her mouth unrestrained, against her will and now she'd given up trying.

A slight tremor shook his body. She risked a look at him. His lips were quirking madly, until he broke out in a grin. She listened in disbelief to the sound of his restrained laughter. In all these years, she had never heard him laugh. Not even once.

"Neji", she said sternly, a vein starting to bulge in her head. He quieted but still smiled down at her.

"Tenten, has anyone ever told you that gifts are meant to be pleasant?"

She turned a becoming shade of pink. Hastily, she got up, disentangling herself from him. She stood, brushing off her clothes self consciously.

"Here I have something for you", he said from behind her.

She accepted her dragon kunai back and looked at the item wrapped in silk with some surprise. She handled it gingerly.

"It won't bite", he remarked dryly. She snorted, unrolling the item. The scabbard was plain but the knife it contained was a beauty. The dagger's grip fit her palm perfectly and a trail of Sakura blossoms was craved from the tip of the blade extending all the way up to the hilt. The cravings were delicate and fine.

"I thought it might suit the _Deadly Flower maiden of Konoha",_ he intoned.

"Huh?", she said half listening, still caught up in admiring the dagger.

"It's what they're calling you. I think it has to do with your new technique. Was the _flower cage_ the attack you used on that rouge Nin on your last mission?"

"Yes, though you're the first person to escape it", she said petulantly.

"Naturally, it was inevitable when I countered with the secret technique I've been practising for the Jounin exams", he countered, just a tad arrogantly.

"Oh, it was amazing. You're sure to pass", she beamed at him. He looked at her happy expression, baffled by her changing moods.

"I take it, you like _your_ present"

She looked at the dagger again with a pleased smile before turning to him.

"Yes, thank you Neji, it's beautiful, but why?", she asked a little taken aback now that the initial excitement had worn out.

"A memento for your successful mission, besides I thought you collected them", he said nonchalantly.

Tenten felt a light squeezing sensation in her chest. She clutched the kunai tighter. This could not be classified as an everyday occurrence. Neji had decided to be thoughtful. He had laughed with her (or rather at her). He had more or more less complimented her, in his own way showing his approval of her abilities. Moreover, she suddenly realized just how much _his_ approval mattered to her. It gave her pause.

"And so..", he said seeing that no response was forthcoming. "Aren't you forgetting something?" She looked at him questioningly.

"You haven't _really_ given me anything to remember you by" he deadpanned.

"What?" she said in quiet mortification.

"And something to the effect that you would miss me.."

Instantly, she turned a bright red to match her tunic. Her words coming back to haunt her. She felt a little hunted, if he would just stop replaying her words. Why did she have to say all those things?

"Aaah Yes.. I ..well what is it you want ?"

"Just this", Neji remarked before bending down and capturing her lips in a gentle kiss. Tenten felt her breath leave her completely for the second time today. She pulled away, taking in a deep breath as if she had just surfaced from under water.

"Uh..", she muttered incoherently, licking her lips. That hadn't been the right thing to say, because at that, Neji pressed her close again, kissing her fully. Tenten responded tentatively at first, but then she was pushing him away, only so that she could wrap her arms around his neck, pulling him back to renew the kiss. They broke apart reluctantly, out of breath.

"Was that pleasant enough?", asked Tenten after a while, to break the silence.

"Indeed", responded Neji.

"And so.. ", she prompted.

"So..you're more than a team mate to me"

"You could've fooled me. Until now, that is", she said wryly. "You were so cold and aloof, this morning", she explained.

"On the contrary, I was glad to see you safely back from your mission."

'That and I was contemplating my next course of action.' he thought to himself.

'That's his happy expression?' she wondered to herself in disbelief. "You know", she confided, "I thought Lee and Gai Sensei would be the only ones who cared about my mission and ironically they didnt even turn up today."

"It could be because they thought you weren't back from your mission", he remarked, after a pause.

"Why would they think that ?", she asked puzzled, she had made sure to let them know she was coming.

Neji looked at her flatly.

Suddenly, something clicked into place. The uncharacteristic silence and the taunts.

"You ?!", she exclaimed, pointing a finger at him and taking several steps back.

"Me", he stated.

Tenten's mind raced. He'd planned this all along. He didn't want the rest of Team Gai as witness. There could be no interruptions to his well laid plans after all. He had guessed at her feelings accurately, though Tenten would be loath to admit, he knew her better than she knew herself. And she'd fallen head over heels into his trap, although she hadn't made things any easier for him. He'd watched her make a complete fool of herself too.

Her hands balled into fists. She stomped her way back to him and grabbed hold of the front of his robes.

"You object to my methods?", he asked coolly.

"Certainly, not", she said, firmly yanking him down for another kiss. Tenten didn't mind losing, this time around.


End file.
